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SOLDIER  AND  SERVANT  SERIES 


Memories  Here  and  There  of 
John  Williams,  D.D.,  LL.  D. 

FOURTH    BISHOP    OF    CONNECTICUT 

GARNERED  BY 

WILLIAM  FORD  NICHOLS,  D.  D. 

Bishop  of  California 


Publication  No.  134  Quarterly,  Price  $1.00  April  1924 

Church  Missions  Publishing  Company 

45  Church  Street,  Hartford,  Conn. 


Acceptance  for  mailins  at  special  rate*  of  postage  provided  for  in  section  1  103  Act  of  October  3,  1917, 
Authorized  January  12,  1924. 


Bishop  John  Williams  About  1870 


'Vos  estis  Catholicae  Legis  protectores, 
Sal  terrae,  lux  hominum,  ovium  pastores, 
Mnri  domus  Israel,  morum  correctores, 
Vigiles  Ecclesiae,  gentium  doctores." 


SOLDIER  AND  SERVANT  SERIES 


Memories  Here  and  There  of 
John  Williams,  D.D.,  LL.  D. 

FOURTH    BISHOP    OF    CONNECTICUT 
NINTH  PRESIDING  BISHOP  1887-1899 

GARNERED  BY 

WILLIAM  FORD  NICHOLS,  D.  D. 

Bishop  of  California 


Publication  No.  134  Quarterly  April  1924 

Church  Missions  Publishing  Company 

45  Church  Street,  Hartford,  Conn. 

Acceptance  for  mailing  at  special  rates  of  postage  provided  for  in  section  1 103  Act  of  October  3.  1917, 
Authorized  January  12,  1924. 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER      I.     Boyhood  and  Early  Manhood. 

II.  President    of    Trinity    College    and    Bishop    of 

Connecticut 

III.  Symmetry  and  Strength  in  Episcopate. 

IV.  Dean  of  the  Berkeley  Divinity  School,  Scholar 

and  Connecticut  Churchman. 

V.     Visit  to  England  and  Scotland  in  1884. 
VI.    Later  Years  and  Last  Days. 


MEMORIES,  HERE  AND  THERE 

OF 

BISHOP  JOHN  WILLIAMS,  D.  D.,  LL.  D. 
I. 

BOYHOOD    AND    EARLY    MANHOOD 

Years  ago  in  one  of  Bishop  Williams'  "visitation  homes,"  on 
a  vine-clad  hill,  where  his  memory  is  ever  kept  fragrant,  there 
was  a  somewhat  unique  interpretation  of  the  possibilities  of  a 
"sketch."  An  artist-guest  with  a  piece  of  chalk,  a  piece  of  char- 
coal, and  as  an  eraser  a  piece  of  bread,  outlined  on  a  bit  of 
cardboard,  for  the  evening  circle  the  successive  typical  features  of 
the  stages  of  a  long  lifetime.  He  practically  made  a  man  grow 
up  before  our  eyes  with  a  few  deft  transitional  touches  transform- 
ing the  infant  to  the  boy,  the  boy  to  the  youth  and  so  on,  by 
decades  let  us  say,  until  we  saw  the  child  face  evolved  in  its 
persistence  of  personality  into  its  characteristic  pose  and  expression 
of  a  dignified  old  age.  As  a  sketch  it  covered  progressively  a 
ripened  record.  It  gave  an  impression  of  four  score  years  in  about 
thirty  minutes.  As  a  miniature  sketch  of  a  full  manhood  that 
impression  was  a  "compression"  without  sacrificing  expression. 
Therein  was  the  genius  of  the  true  artist. 

Now  one  of  the  most  life-like  portraits  of  Bishop  John  WilHams 
is  what  has  been  called  his  "Rembrandt  photograph"  with  its 
chiaroscuro  of  light  and  shadow.  In_  effect  it  seems  an  appeal  to 
the  imagination  with  its  impalpable  shadowing,  a  plea  for  lack 
of  doing  full  justice  to  the  noble  countenance  in  what  has  been 
called  the  background  of  "a  sense  of  impossibility." 

Some  such  qualifications  of  real  art  would  be  essential  for  any 
sketch  however  lightly  drawn  which  could  at  all  satisfy  those  who 
knew  and  valued  the  greatness  of  the  fourth  Bishop  of  Connecticut. 
And  the  writer  of  this  dwells  on  the  matter  at  the  outset  because 
it  would  simply  be  his  despair  to  attempt  anything  of  the  kind. 
All  he  can  hope  to  do  in  his  loyal  wish  to  accede  to  the  request 


4  SOLDIER   AND   SERVANT   SERIES 

which  has  come  to  him  from  the  Church  Missions  PubHshing 
Company  is  to  gather  up  memories  here  and  there  out  of  others' 
association  with  the  Bishop  as  well  as  his  own,  with  the  aim  to 
identify  and  preserve  some  of  the  memorable  traits  so  fondly 
cherished  by  us  all. 

The  Bishop  was  proof  against  the  repeated  solicitation  which 
came  to  him  to  dower  the  Church  with  his  autobiography  and 
indeed  his  destruction  of  correspondence  and  his  instruction  to 
his  executors  to  destroy  every  letter,  sermon,  etc.,  that  might  be 
found  among  his  effects,  all  were  in  the  line  of  forestalling  any 
adequate  preparation  of  his  Biography  —  which  failing  his  Auto- 
biography—  would  have  undoubtedly  illuminated  the  chapters  of 
our  Church  History  in  the  making  of  which  he  had  so  marked,  if 
modest,  a  part.  There  are  not  wanting,  however,  reminiscences 
as  well  as  memorabilia  of  him  upon  which  we  can  draw,  and,  in 
order  to  give  them  their  "sketch"  limning  for  following  out  con- 
tours, we  shall  be  guided  a  good  deal  by  the  principle  of  selecting 
those  bearing  upon  the  progressive  periods  of  his  life  from  his 
childhood  on.  And  we  can  venture  upon  that  believing  that  he 
would  submit  to  our  hope  for  his  allowing  it  with  the  same  genial 
resignation  with  which  he  permitted  his  photograph  to  be  taken 
for  pleading  admirers. 

John  Williams  was  born  of  a  distinguished  Puritan  ancestry 
in  Deerfield,  Massachusetts,  August  30,  1817.  His  father  was 
Ephraim  Williams,  well  known  among  contemporaries  as  a  high 
minded  jurist  and  his  mother  was  Emily  Trowbidge  Williams, 
whose  stately  presence  in  the  Bishop's  home  in  Middletown  until 
her  death  in  1872  some  of  us  well  remember.  Given  such  antece- 
dents, it  would  seem  not  to  have  been  difficult  to  read  a  horoscope 
over  the  boy  of  his  coming  distinction.  There  was  a  New  England 
heredity  of  intellectual  promise,  a  home  life  to  foster  warm  qualities 
of  heart,  back  to  which  those  who  were  privileged  to  know  it  in 
that  Middletown  home  could  trace  his  close  filial  devotion 
to  his  aged  mother.  From  the  first  we  can  surmise  that 
symmetry  of  character  and  training  from  a  fine  blend  and  due 
proportioning  of  vigor  of  mind  and  heart  which  all  after  years 
developed  as  the  real  hiding  of  his  power.  And  indeed  to  try  to 
catch  that  vraisemblance  of  him  as  his  life  distinction,  seems  to 
afford  the  motif  in  the  freehand  outlining  of  this  sketch.    Prepared 


BISHOP    JOHN    WILLIAMS  5 

for  Harvard  in  Academies  at  Deerfield  and  Northfield,  Massachu- 
setts, he  entered  the  College  in  1831  at  the  end  of  his  fourteenth 
year.  His  own  memories  of  those  early  home  days  he  sometimes 
dwelt  upon  as  precious  in  themselves  and  as  illustrative  of  a  type 
of  the  old  time  New  England  family  and  home  life.  He  liked  to 
recall  hours  around  the  hearthstone  of  the  family  thrown  upon  its 
own  resource  for  passing  long  winter  evenings;  with  tales  of  the 
days  of  Indian  incursions  in  which  his  own  ancestry  had  suffered; 
with  paternal  readings  of  installments  of  Scott's  novels  as  they 
came  before  the  days  of  our  many  periodicals,  creating  in  the  boy 
a  love  for  them  which  to  the  end  of  his  life  often  presented  that 
familiar  scene  in  his  habitual  corner  of  his  Drawing  Room  as  he 
sought  relaxation  from  busy  days  in  one  of  those  well-worn  Waverly 
volumes;  with  the  storm-staid  emphasis  of  cosiness  around  the 
blazing  logs  which  always  gave  to  him  such  a  joy  in  Whittier's 
"Snow  Bound"  in  his  later  years. 

"Shut  in  from  all  the  world  without 
We  sat  the  clean-winged  hearth  about." 
The  very  boy  in  him  sometimes  seemed  to  find  a  new  glee  in  a 
snowstorm  as  he  would  look  out  of  a  window,  quoting, 

"As  zigzag  wavering  to  and  fro 
Crossed  and  re-crossed  the  winged  snow," 
and  say  "See  how  true  that  is  —  the  flakes  never  seem  to  light 
anywhere."  The  wholesome  atmosphere  of  that  home  supplies  to 
the  imagination  its  contribution  to  the  daily  rounding  and  develop- 
ing of  a  natural  strength  of  character,  where  detail  of  routine  is 
lacking.  One  episode,  however,  for  which  the  Bishop  himself  was 
the  authority  is  too  suggestive  of  what  might  be  called  "meeting 
house  atmosphere"  of  the  time  to  be  omitted  here.  "Many  a 
long  Sunday  hour  he  spent  in  one  of  the  old-time  square  pews" 
of  the  Unitarian  church,  for  —  as  we  shall  see  later  —  his  boyhood 
was  not  in  the  communion  of  his  after  choice,  "sitting  through  the 
old-time  discourse,  before  which  it  is  to  be  feared  sometimes  the 
hour  glass  had  about  the  only  signs  of  real  'following'."  It  so 
happened  that  directly  in  front  of  the  boy  John  Wilhams  sat  a 
worthy  magnate  of  that  congregation,  whose  queue  so  adjusted 
itself  to  that  gentleman's  habitual  slumbers  in  sermon  time  that, 
as  his  head  slipped  down  on  the  back  of  the  pew,  the  queue  took 


6  SOLDIER   AND   SERVANT    SERIES 

an  angle  upward  and  projected  over  into  the  pew  of  the  WilHams 
family  with  a  sort  of  weekly  challenge  to  the  boy,  not  so  absorbed 
in  the  current  sermon  as  to  be  oblivious  of  the  fact.  Sunday  after 
Sunday  the  temptation  came,  and  was  resisted;  but  it  finally 
became  too  much  for  the  boy  nature;  and  in  a  moment  when,  both 
in  his  own  and  the  adjoining  pew,  somnolence  seemed  to  reign,  the 
challenge  was  met;  the  queue  was  firmly  clutched  and  tweaked, 
with  an  instantaneous  effect  upon  several  staid  family  pews  in  that 
immediate  vicinity;  and  the  boy  never  forgot  it!  The  Bishop 
laconically  remarked  that  it  was  impressed  upon  him  by  its  conse- 
quences to  him  from  a  paternal  source  as  well  as  by  the  experience 
itself! 

While  at  Harvard  he  was  under  the  administration  of  President 
Josiah  Quincy  of  whom  he  had  a  fund  of  anecdotes  attesting  the 
human  in  that  sedate  dignitary,  but  the  notable  feature  of  his  life 
there  was  the  evidence  of  a  depth  and  working  of  conviction  rare 
in  one  only  fifteen  or  sixteen.  Dr.  Samuel  Hart  says  of  it  "While 
at  Harvard,  largely  owing  to  the  influence  of  the  Reverend  Benjamin 
Davis  Winslow,  after  much  discussion  and  study  he  became  in  his 
convictions  a  Churchman."  Bishop  Henry  Potter  in  his  Sketch 
of  Bishop  Williams  from  which  I  quote  freely,  says  "there  was  in 
the  youth  an  intellectual  element  which  he  never  outgrew."  He 
went  from  Harvard  to  Trinity  College,  Hartford,  in  which  he  was 
to  be  in  time  "tutor,  professor,  trustee,  president  and  Chancellor" 
and  graduated  there  in  the  class  of  1835.  His  classmate  and 
roommate,  James  Roosevelt  Bayley,  afterwards  became  the  Roman 
Catholic  Archbishop  of  Baltimore.  And  another  classmate,  Robert 
Tomes,  in  a  book  of  voluble  reminiscences  reflected  the  high  regard 
of  the  fellow  students  for  John  Williams  in  the  tribute  he  paid 
to  him.  Becoming  a  Candidate  for  Orders  he  entered  the  General 
Theological  Seminary  but  his  continuance  was  interrupted  by  the 
illness  of  his  Father  and  his  theological  training  was  received  from 
the  Rev.  Dr.  Samuel  Farmer  Jarvis,  who  has  been  called  "the 
most  learned  scholar  among  the  Churchmen  of  his  day,"  becoming 
Dr.  Jarvis'  assistant  at  the  then  Christ  Church,  Middletown, 
Connecticut,  after  his  ordination  to  the  Diaconate  by  Bishop 
Brownell,  September  2,  1838.  He  was  advanced  to  the  Priesthood 
in  the  same  church  September  26,  1841.  We  can  read  "between 
the  lines"  of  those  primary  years  of  his  ministry  in  Middletown 


BISHOP    JOHN    WILLIAMS  7 

that  the  application  of  the  scholar  to  his  opportunities  signalized 
his  use  of  the  time  allowed  him  by  his  simple  routine  of  parochial 
duty,  the  curate  then  not  being  the  morning  to  night  "institutional- 
ist"  so  much  the  vogue  today.  And  the  later  founding  of  the 
Berkeley  Divinity  School  with  the  provision  of  the  old  home  of 
Dr.  Jarvis  as  the  Bishop's  Kfe-long  residence,  had  a  sentiment  with 
him  that  was  itself  a  fond  tie  with  his   Middletown  Diaconate. 

Not  long  after  he  was  ordained  to  the  Priesthood  he  accepted 
the  call  to  St.  George's  Church,  Schenectady,  extended  to  him 
May  24,  1842,  being  instituted  as  Rector  July  29,  1842.  In 
Vestryman  Mr.  Willis  T.  Hanson,  Jr.'s  fine  History  of  St.  George's 
Church  of  1919,  he  says  "Among  the  regular  attendants  of  St. 
George's  Church  there  are  still  to  be  numbered  those  who  remember 
well  the  handsome,  dignified  figure,  the  earnest  words  of  counsel, 
always  met  with  marked  attention;  and  who  still  cherish  as  their 
fondest  memory  the  recollection  of  their  association  with  Mr. 
Williams,  continuing  active  in  many  cases  for  years  after  his 
removal  from  Schenectady."  Such  memories  of  Mr,  Williams' 
years  in  parish  life  are  especially  choice  when  we  appreciate  how 
comparatively  small  part  of  his  ministry  was  that  of  a  parish  deacon 
and  priest,  —  only  some  nine  years  out  of  sixty-one;  and  how 
naturally  we  think  of  him  more  in  his  career  as  Academic  Head 
and  Bishop  than  parish  priest.  Not  much  in  detail  to  be  sure  has 
been  preserved  of  his  parish  routine  and  Mr.  Hanson  regrets  that 
in  the  Vestry  Records  of  St.  George's  there  is  "Httle  worthy  of  com- 
ment" of  the  parish  activities  during  the  rectorship  of  Mr.  Williams 
and  that  the  minutes  "reflect  to  no  degree  the  noteworthy  success 
which  really  attended  the  ministrations  of  Mr.  Williams.  They 
suggest  in  no  way  the  reason  for  his  success,  —  the  personality 
of  the  man  himself.  It  is  the  aim  of  this  sketch,  where  fullness 
of  treatments  fails,  to  show  by  intimation  the  effect  of  the  gifts  of 
mind  and  heart  in  their  happy  combination,  upon  the  folk  of  his 
congregations,  brief  as  was  that  stage  of  his  ministry. 

The  history  of  St.  George's  has  with  meticulous  care 
preserved  the  record  of  baptisms,  marriages  and  burials  (and  even 
of  births  from  1767  to  1788)  and  for  Mr.  Williams'  rectorship  — 
he  was  first  made  a  Doctor  of  Divinity  by  Union  College  in 
1847  —  there  are  some  seven  large  pages  of  recorded  baptisms, 
two  pages  of  marriages  and  four  pages  of  burials  in  a  little  more 


8  SOLDIER   AND   SERVANT   SERIES 

than  six  years.  Among  the  adult  baptisms  is  the  name  of  Eliza 
Tibbs  whom  many  will  remember  as  the  Bishop's  faithful  house- 
keeper for  many  years.  There  is  also  the  name  of  Abraham  New- 
kirk  Littlejohn,  afterwards  Bishop  of  Long  Island  and  Emily 
Williams  —  could  that  have  been  the  Bishop's  mother,  formerly  a 
Unitarian?  —  both  "hypothetically  baptized."  As  a  rector  he  not 
only  won  the  "united  affection  and  ardent  attachment"  of  his 
people  as  they  expressed  it  to  him  when  he  declined  his  first  call 
but  in  his  frequent  after  references  to  those  years  there  was  the 
manifest  mark  they  had  made  upon  his  life  as  a  true  joy  of  his 
ministry.  He  formed  lifetime  intimacies  with  members  of  the 
Faculty  of  Union  College  and  with  neighboring  clergy,  including 
such  men  as  President  Eliphalet  Nott,  Prof.  Alonzo  Potter,  after- 
wards Bishop  of  Pennsylvania,  and  his  brother,  Horatio  Potter, 
then  Rector  of  St.  Peter's,  Albany,  afterwards  Bishop  of  New 
York,  and  he  had  many  anecdotes  of  their  comradeship.  While 
at  St.  George's  in  1844  Mr.  Williams  issued  a  small  volume  of 
Ancient  Hymns  oj  Holy  Church  in  one  of  which  Mr.  Hanson  calls 
attention  to  an  expression  in  which  the  rector  indicated  a  wish 
that  "he  might  sleep  his  last  sleep"  in  the  Churchyard  shadowed 
by  the  St.  George's  he  loved  —  where  he  would  be  content  to  serve 
all  his  days.  And  again  that  early  essay  of  sacred,  verse  incidentally 
discloses  the  characteristic  play  of  fine  sentiment  in  and  around 
his  parts  of  mind  and  heart  that  were  so  rapidly  arresting  the 
notice  of  the  Church.  But  in  what  Bishop  Henry  Potter  quotes 
as  "the  curious  ripeness  of  his  youth"  his  Alma  Mater  sought  him 
for  its  Head, 

II. 

PRESIDENT   OF   TRINITY   COLLEGE   AND   BISHOP 
OF    CONNECTICUT 

In  1848  when  only  thirty-one  years  of  age,  he  became 
President  of  Trinity  College  bringing  to  it  "qualities  of  vision 
and  prudence  rarely  found  except  as  the  notes  of  middle  life  or 
advanced  age."  In  the  meantime  in  1846  Mr.  Williams  had  deliv- 
ered the  first  address  before  the  Convocation  of  the  College  with 
the  foreshadowing  title  The  Christian  Scholar:  his  position,  his 
dangers  and  his  duties.    Out  of  its  eloquent  pages  we  may  quote 


BISHOP    JOHN    WILLIAMS  9 

one  paragraph  which  singularly  suggests  his  own  life  accomplish- 
ment as  well  as  his  ideal  of  a  "practical  scholar":  "He  is  the 
man  who  when  he  comes  in  contact  with  another  mind,  has  power 
to  give  that  mind  a  bent,  an  impulse,  a  lofty  tone,  a  high  direc- 
tion, an  earnest  ardor,  and  to  impart  to  it  deeper,  fuller,  truer 
life."  Could  the  multitudes  who  felt  his  influence  or  came  under 
his  immediate  training  more  felicitously  express  what  he  was  to 
them?  Then  in  his  inaugural  as  President  with  the  opportune 
subject  Academic  Studies  dehvered  on  Commencement  Day,  1849, 
as  he  outlined  the  Prospectus  for  his  policy  he  treats  of  the  field 
of  Study  under  the  three  heads.  "1.  The  laws  of  nature,"  "2.  Of 
Ancient  and  Modern  Languages  and  literature,"  and  "3.  Of  our- 
selves," discussing  in  his  masterly  survey  "the  proportion  in  which 
they  are  to  be  com.bined"  in  the  changes  of  the  ages,  while  the 
elements  of  instruction  remain  the  same.  Much  of  that  address 
of  the  mid-nineteenth  century  conditions  would  with  all  our 
academic  changes  be  worthy  of  utterance  by  any  University 
President  today  in  its  vision  and  scope.  We  can  only  cite  a  point 
of  its  summary:  "It  will  not  do  to  give  the  young  man  the 
impression  that  his  college  life  is  as  it  were,  but  a  parenthesis  in 
his  existence,  isolated  and  separated,  unconnected  with  either  what 
precedes  or  follows  it.  Not  so.  It  gathers  up  the  acquirements, 
the  powers,  the  faculties  of  earlier  days;  it  directs  and  gives  a 
tone  to  these  same  things  as  they  stretch  onward  to  maturer  life. 
It  gives  the  keys  of  knowledge,  it  teaches  how  to  use  them;  and 
if  they  who  hold  them  will  not  then  unlock  the  vast  and  glorious 
treasure  house,  the  fault  is  all  their  own." 

As  President  of  Trinity  all  available  information  goes  to  show 
that  Dr.  Williams  was  truly  the  Scholar  in  action  on  the  very 
lines  quoted  from  him  above.  A  man  of  affairs  as  an  Executive, 
an  expert  for  treating  the  very  human  genus  of  the  undergraduate, 
the  commanding  personality  we  are  trying  to  trace  in  every  stage 
of  this  sketch,  his  widening  recognition  in  the  Republic  of  Letters, 
and  the  turning  to  him  as  having  leadership  for  the  Church,  all 
were  outstanding  even  in  the  few  years  of  his  tenure  of  the  College 
Presidency  before  his  Call  to  the  Episcopate  finally  withdrew  him 
from  the  office.  And  here  we  must  deplore  the  lack  of  his  corres- 
pondence both  during  his  Presidency  and  his  whole  episcopate  in 
which  with  its  characteristic  elan  all  these  features  would  speak 


10  SOLDIER   AND   SERVANT    SERIES 

for  themselves.  His  letters  would  have  made  possible  the  larger 
Biography.  Their  loss  and  that  deprecation  of  any  biographical 
enterprise  which  sometimes  led  him  to  cite  experiences  of  public 
men  of  an  older  generation  in  the  propensity  of  a  certain  scribe 
to  "write  them  up"  as  "having  added  a  new  terror  to  death!"  must 
even  in  a  sketch  leave  much  space  to  be  filled  in  by  inference. 
But  fortunately  Bishop  Henry  Potter  in  his  Reminiscences  of 
Bishops  and  Archbishops  secured  for  his  Article  on  Bishop  Wil- 
liams, data  of  the  period  of  his  Presidency  from  one  who  v/as 
then  an  undergraduate  of  Trinity,  the  late  Rev.  Dr.  Horace  B. 
Hitchings,  selections  from  which  may  well  constitute  some  of  the 
memories  "here  and  there."  With  his  genial  and  appreciative  pen 
Dr.  Hitchings  among  other  memorabilia  tells  us  of  his  first  meet- 
ing with  President  Williams  when  as  a  freshman  a  rap  came  to 
his  door  and  he  thought  his  time  had  come  for  Sophomore 
exploitation  he  opened  it  to  find  none  other  than  Dr.  Williams  to 
give  him  a  kindly  greeting  and  relieve  his  loneliness.  "Those  kind 
words  warmed  my  heart  and  filled  me  with  a  love  that  made  college 
life  a  delight  and  has  caused  it  ever  since  to  be  a  memory  most 
sweet  to  look  upon."  Then  he  says  truly:  The  President  "never 
forgot  that  he  once  had  been  a  boy.  That,  I  believe,  was  the 
secret  of  his  successful  management  of  the  college;  and  of  his 
extraordinary  influence  over  young  men,  even  in  his  advancing 
years."  The  following  out  of  several  "undergraduate  episodes" 
given  by  Dr.  Hitchings  is  illustrative  of  the  kind  of  President  he 
was: 

"On  one  occasion  the  president  told  me  he  was  sitting  at 
his  window  during  a  heavy  thunder-storm.  The  rain  came  down 
in  torrents.  Great  was  his  surprise  to  see  a  student,  one  of  the 
model  students  at  that,  bareheaded  and  in  his  dressing-gown  and 
slippers,  running  across  the  campus  with  a  water  pitcher  in  his 
hand.  What  can  the  boy  be  up  to?  he  thought.  He  watched, 
and  saw  him  climb  to  the  top  of  a  low  building  near  by,  empty 
his  watch  pitcher,  and  run  back  again.  What  did  it  all  mean? 
After  the  storm  was  over  Professor  B.,  who  was  making  observa- 
tions of  the  fall  of  rain  for  the  United  States  Weather  Bureau, 
came  to  the  president's  room  and  reported  the  greatest  fall  of 
water  of  which  he  had  ever  heard.  'I  have  searched  the  records 
for  years  back.     There  was  nothing  ever  like  it.     So  many  inches 


BISHOP    JOHN    WILLIAMS  11 

of  water  in  so  many  minutes.'  The  secret  of  the  student's  water 
pitcher  was  out;  but  the  president  kept  his  counsel.  'Professor, 
I  think  I  would  not  make  an  official  report  of  this  storm  until 
I  had  looked  into  the  matter  more  thoroughly.  There  must  be 
some  mistake  about  it.  Are  you  sure  there  is  no  leakage  from 
the  roof  or  elsewhere  that  would  affect  the  water  guage?'  The 
president  sent  for  the  student  to  come  to  his  room.  'John,  you 
are  neither  a  duck  nor  a  goose,  so  don't  go  out  in  the  rain  again 
with  a  pitcher  of  water.  You  might  seriously  interfere  with  the 
calculations  of  the  United  States  Weather  Bureau.'  John  after- 
wards became  a  distinguished  bishop  in  the  Church,  but,  so  far 
as  heard  from,  was  never  known  either  to  deny,  or  affirm,  the 
truth  of  the  story." 

But  his  old  Diocese  of  New  York  in  which  Schenectady  then 
was,  coveted  the  leadership  which  they  had  discovered  in  him 
and  when  it  became  necessary  to  hold  an  episcopal  election  there 
the  clergy  voted  for  him  as  their  Bishop  and  the  laity  came  near 
making  it  an  election.  It  was  said  that  some  of  the  latter  objected 
to  his  Churchmanship,  passing  it  around  that  he  was  a  "Puseyite." 
We  shall  note  something  of  his  real  relation  to  the  "Oxford 
Movement"  later  but  the  writer  of  this  was  assured  years  ago  by 
an  old  and  leading  Presbyter  who  participated  in  that  election 
that  Dr.  Williams  in  his  judgment  would  undoubtedly  have  been 
chosen  for  the  episcopate  of  New  York  at  an  adjourned  Conven- 
tion. He  furthermore  stated  that  he  was  one  of  a  Committee 
to  visit  Church  leaders  in  Connecticut,  having  had  an  inkling 
of  the  probability  that  the  President  of  Trinity  would  be  elected 
Assistant  Bishop  of  Connecticut,  in  order  to  try  to  dissuade  them 
in  the  interest  of  his  choice  for  New  York.  But  the  Connecticut 
Convention  met  before  the  New  Yqrk  adjourned  Convention  and 
on  St.  Barnabas'  Day,  June  11,  1851,  in  St.  John's  Church,  Water- 
bury,  Dr.  Williams  by  73  out  of  88  votes  of  the  clergy  concurred 
in  by  87  out  of  101  of  the  laity  was  elected  Assistant  Bishop  of 
Connecticut  and  was  consecrated  in  St.  John's  Church,  Hartford, 
on  Wednesday,  October  29th,  1851.  From  his  letter  of  accept- 
ance dated  June  16,  1851,  the  following  extracts  reveal  the  spirit 
with  which  he  faced  the  new  responsibilities:  "To  be  associated 
with  the  clergy  of  Connecticut  and  her  laity,  is  an  honor  which 
I  feel  most  deeply.     I  am  most  willing,  too,  to  devote  my  life  to 


12  SOLDIER   AND   SERVANT   SERIES 

the  service  of  a  Diocese  in  which  I  was  confirmed  and  received 
both  my  orders;  in  whose  principles  I  was  educated;  to  which  I 
am  warmly  attached;  and  whose  spotless  history  I  reverence  and 
love.  *  *  *  And  yet  with  all  this,  I  tremble  at  the  thought  of 
how  much  this  decision  involves,  for  all  of  us  in  time,  for  me  in 
eternity  —  Were  I  not  conscious  that  this  designation  has  come 
to  me  unsought,  and  did  I  not,  therefore,  feel  that  I  might  rest 
on  the  promise  of  the  Church's  Head  I  should  indeed  despair." 
In  the  first  weeks  after  his  consecration  apparently  he  accompanied 
Bishop  Brownell  on  visitations  and  preached  and  addressed  the 
Candidates.  It  may  be  a  matter  of  interest  to  preserve  here  a 
facsimile  page  of  what  he  later  gave  his  Secretary  as  his  first 
confirmation  address,  written  out  in  full  in  his  then  clear  hand 
and  noted  by  him  as  having  been  delivered  twice  on  each  of  the 
Sundays,  November  9,  16,  23  and  30,  1851.  Early  in  his  episco- 
pate he  was  taken  down  with  a  severe  illness  which  seems  to 
have  left  him  with  an  impression  indicated  from  time  to  time  in 
his  Convention  addresses  that  he  would  not  have  a  long  life. 
And  a  threatened  lack  of  robustness  still  earlier  seemed  to  lead 
him  to  deprecate  betimes  any  exaggerated  stressing  of  the  merely 
physical  qualifications  for  usefulness  in  the  ministry,  which  his 
own  eighty-two  years  certainly  sustained. 

Of  that  episcopate  lacking  only  one  year  of  a  half-century, 
as  Assistant  Bishop,  Bishop  and  Presiding  Bishop  it  must  be  a 
most  conscious  defect  of  this  sketch  to  be  unable  to  give  an 
adequate  idea.  How  it  left  its  mark  in  preaching  and  teaching 
on  unnumbered  lives;  how  it  added  new  and  determining  chapters 
to  the  welfare  and  progress  of  the  Diocese  of  Connecticut;  how 
it  influenced  leaders  and  policies  of  the  National  Church;  how  it 
impressed  intellectual  contemporaries,  —  one  of  whom  himself  of 
high  repute  said:  "Had  the  Bishop  become  a  lawyer  instead  of 
a  clergyman,  he  would  have  been  one  of  the  ablest  lawyers  and 
judges  the  country  has  ever  seen;  logical  and  convincing  in  argu- 
ment, just,  and  discerning  truth  from  error  in  conclusions."  An 
extended  editorial  in  the  Hartford  Courant  on  the  occasion  of  the 
Jubilee  of  the  Bishop's  ordination  to  the  Diaconate,  the  fiftieth 
anniversary  being  September  2,  1888,  speaks  of  him  as  "one  who 
occupies  the  highest  position  in  an  influential  religious  body,  and 
is  also  in  a  very  true  sense  the  foremost  citizen  of  our  state.     For 


Emily  Trowbridge  Williams,  the   Bishop's  Mother 


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BISHOP    JOHN    WILLIAMS  13 

while  Bishop  Williams  is  officially  at  the  head  of  the  Episcopal 
Church  in  Connecticut,  he  is,  in  the  respect  and  affection  in  which 
he  is  held,  the  Bishop  of  all  Connecticut"  and  again  "Facile 
Princeps  in  the  American  Church  as  a  leader  of  men  as  well  as 
first  as  Presiding  Bishop,  —  an  adviser  of  Bishops,  a  quasi  supreme 
court  judge  in  canon  law,  a  teacher  of  theologians  as  well  as  of 
theology,  an  administrator  whose  course  is  as  signally  marked  by 
the  peacemakers'  blessings  as  it  is  by  untiring,  self-forgetting  work, 
by  far-seeing  judgment  and  by  one  continuous  illustration  of  the 
text  of  one  of  his  own  most  powerful  sermons,  'It  is  required  in 
stewards  that  a  man  be  found  faithful'  —  these  and  other  as  con- 
spicuous points  of  the  half-century's  record  as  priest,  preacher  and 
scholar  might  well  draw  to  him  in  his  official  character,  the  homage 
of  all  as  to  a  chief  man  in  his  generation."  Bishop  Henry  Potter 
refers  to  one  of  his  own  sermons  in  which  he  "ventured  to  bracket 
him  with  Lincoln  —  the  two  so  unlike  in  their  traditions  and 
training,  so  often  alike  in  their  unadorned  and  columnar  directness 
and  simplicity." 

III. 

SYMMETRY    AND   STRENGTH   IN    EPISCOPATE 

We  have  however  from  the  Bishop  himself,  spoken  at  the 
burial  service  of  another  —  Bishop  John  Henry  Hopkins  some- 
time of  Vermont  —  words  which  go  to  the  very  heart  of  his  own 
summary  of  a  true  episcopate  and  undoubtedly  express  for  us 
better  than  any  one  else  could  an  estimate  of  what  he  experienced 
as  the  epitome  of  his  own.  He  said,  "To  one  who  looks  from 
the  outside  at  a  Bishop's  work,  it.  bears,  of  very  necessity,  an 
aspect  of  routine.  And  so  men  come  to  speak  of  it  as  mechanical, 
and  of  him  as  a  machine.  Nor  can  his  brief  Annual  Report  of 
'Confirmations,  sermons,  ordinations,  parishes  visited,  churches  con- 
secrated' do  much  to  undeceive  them.  But  what  a  varied,  solemn, 
blessed  life  there  is  to  him  under  that  dry  and  unattractive  record. 
What  hours  and  scenes  in  which  he  has  mingled  in  life's  highest 
joys  and  deepest  tragedies  does  it  bring  back  to  him.  From  year 
to  year,  the  written  or  spoken  words  which  tell  his  round  of  labor 
are  almost  the  same.     But,  for  him  at  least,  each  has  its  back- 


14  SOLDIER   AND   SERVANT   SERIES 

ground  of  cherished  memories  which  give  it  its  distinct,  peculiar 
life.  Written  it  may  be  nowhere  else,  these  memories  are  written 
in  his  heart;  "they  enter  into  the  very  most  hidden  portions  of 
his  being.  Let  this  be  remembered  for  our  chief  pastors  when  we 
stand  beside  their  tombs,  even  if  it  be  forgotten  while  they  live." 
Add  to  this  such  a  quotation  as  Bishop  Williams  made  from 
another  Bishop  in  definition  of  terms  of  co-operation  of  Bishop  and 
Diocese  "Neither  will  I  act  without  you  nor  can  you  act  without 
me"  and  also  his  application  of  the  counsel  of  the  Son  of  Sirach 
to  Bishop  Seabury's  episcopate:  "If  thou  be  made  the  master 
lift  not  thyself  up  but  be  among  them  as  one  of  the  rest"  and 
we  can  well  take  these  as  disclosing  his  own  aim  and  his  own 
record.  This  again  suggests  what  a  wealth  of  strong  and  loving 
character  in  a  blend  of  great  mind  and  heart  and  ideals  for  his 
episcopate  could  have  been  revealed  in  his  own  language,  had  his 
letters  as  so  many  sampled  them  been  spread  before  us  in  all 
their  characteristic  illumination  and  charm,  say  in  octavo  volumes 
of  an  artistic  Biographer  instead  of  in  these  fugitive  extracts 
from  his  public   utterances. 

And  his  visitations  were  by  no  means  without  their  constant 
contribution  to  his  sense  of  humour.  On  one  of  the  earliest  of 
them  when  he  did  not  know  the  roadways  as  thoroughly  as  he 
did  later  and  was  uncertain  as  to  when  to  turn  to  reach  a 
Church  for  an  appointment  and  as  it  proved  was  really  going 
away  from  rather  than  towards  his  destination,  he  asked  a 
pedestrian  the  way.  The  man  evidently  misled  by  the  youthful 
appearance  of  the  bishop  and  his  companion  in  the  buggy  said 
"No  sir,  I  won't  tell  you  the  way.  I  don't  intend  to  encourage 
you  young  rovers  ridin'  around  this  way  Sunday  afternoons." 
When  the  Bishop  finally  found  the  right  road  and  entered  the 
chancel  for  the  service,  whom  should  he  see  but  this  same  censor 
of  "Sabbath  breaking"  sitting  in  the  front  pew!  And  after  service 
when  the  Bishop  hurried  out  to  enjoy  with  him  the  denouement, 
with  equal  alacrity  the  surprised  censor  was  disappearing  in  the 
distance!  Reminiscences  of  the  Bishop  were  so  rife  through  the 
Church  that  his  episcopate  had  the  rare  distinction,  like  that  of 
Bishop  Samuel  WMlberforce  of  England,  of  becoming  a  sort  of 
"residuary  legatee"  of  all  episcopal  experiences  and  good  stories 
orphaned  of  other  fathering,  whether  the  Bishop  had  anything  to 


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BISHOP    JOHN    WILLIAMS  IS 

do  with  them  or  not.  But  there  is  a  very  "embarrassment  of 
riches"  in  those  that  are  well  authenticated  and  altogether  delight- 
ful as  he  would  recount  them.  Such  mots  as  "The  Puritans  first 
fell  on  their  own  knees  and  then  on  the  aborigines"  and  his  reply 
at  a  dinner  to  an  inquisitive  individual  who  was  pressing  him  with 

some  such  question  as  "Has  the  Rev.  Mr. said  anything  to 

you  about  ?"     "Nothing  to  speak  of,  sir"  have  had  wide 

currency.  But  out  of  many  we  can  only  sample  two  or  three 
choice  bits:  On  one  of  his  visitations,  the  bishop  found  himself, 
in  the  time  between  breakfast  and  the  Sunday  morning  service, 
alone  with  the  rector's  young  hopeful  in  the  study.  Chummy 
relations  were  at  once  established,  and  the  little  four-year-old 
said:  "Oh,  Bishop,  wouldn't  you  like  to  have  me  show  you  my 
picture-book?"  "Of  course  I  would,"  said  the  bishop.  Thereupon 
the  book  was  brought  out  and  looked  over  in  detail  with  full  zest 
by  both  bishop  and  child.  When  the  sitting  was  about  to  adjourn 
the  little  fellow  intensely  delighted  the  bishop  by  remarking: 
"Now,  Bishop,  don't  tell  papa  about  this,  cause  he  won't  let  me 
look  at  this  book  on  Sunday!" 

Another  instance  of  child  candor,  "with  a  moral,"  was  when, 
sitting  on  a  verandah  with  the  fond  six-year-old  of  the  Rectory 
on  his  knee,  the  Rector  and  his  wife  started  off  in  a  buggy  to 
attend  to  some  parish  call.  "There  go  the  biggest  pair  of  liars  in 
this  town,"  said  the  child,  pointing  to  the  receding  vehicle.  "Why, 
my  boy,"  said  the  astonished  Bishop,  "do  you  say  such  a  thing 
as  that  of  your  loving  and  good  Father  and  Mother?"  "Well," 
explained  the  little  plaintiff,  "they  have  promised  me  a  good  while 
that  the  next  time  they  went  riding  in  that  buggy  they  would 
take  me  along,  but  they  never  do!" 

There  are  "various  readings''  of  another  experience  of  the 
Bishop  which  in  themselves  indicate  the  "twinkle"  and  the  vogue 
of  the  story.  What  happened  was  this:  In  those  days  of  rural 
"spare  rooms,"  refrigerator-Hke  in  winter  and  oven-like  in  the  heat 
of  summer,  the  Bishop  and  his  Chaplain  were  spending  a  night. 
Before  they  retired  they  found  the  windows  were  all  securely 
fastened  down,  and  would  not  yield  to  any  attempt  upon  them 
in  the  interest  of  fresh  air.  With  a  resignation  to  the  stuffiness 
each  could  only  find  broken  snatches  of  sleep.  So  in  the  middle 
of  the  night  the  Bishop  said  to  the  Chaplain:    "I'm  not  going  to 


16  SOLDIER  AND  SERVANT  SERIES 

suffocate,  won't  you  get  up  and  take  one  of  your  shoes  and  break 
a  window  pane  to  let  in  air."  Fumbling  around  in  the  pitch  dark- 
ness the  Chaplain  did  so  and  bang  went  the  crash  of  glass.  Then 
the  Bishop  is  reported  to  have  turned  over  with  a  great  sigh  of 
relief  and  a  prolonged  respiration,  remarking  that  fresh  air  had 
never  felt  so  good  and  then  to  have  slept  the  sleep  of  the  just 
until  morning.  But  it  is  left  to  the  imagination  of  the  reader, 
as  it  had  been  to  theirs,  to  find  in  the  daylight,  the  humble  mirror 
badly  smashed,  every  sunlit  window  pane  still  banning  outside 
air! 

IV. 

DEAN    OF   THE   BERKELEY   DIVINITY    SCHOOL,    SCHOLAR 
AND    CONNECTICUT    CHURCHMAN 

The  Bishop  continued  for  two  years  after  his  consecration  as 
President  of  Trinity,  pending  the  provision  of  a  successor,  and 
then  taking  what  was  the  start  toward  a  theological  department 
of  the  College  and  a  group  of  students  to  Middletown,  he  founded 
the  Berkeley  Divinity  School,  —  giving  it  the  name  of  Berkeley 
in  honor  of  that  "minute  philosopher"  who  had  made  large  plans 
for  a  university  in  the  New  World,  chartered  "for  the  instruction 
of  students  in  literature  and  theology,"  which  failed  to  materialize 
but  left  its  momentum  of  Christian  education  even  at  Yale  College 
in  the  gift  of  a  library,  when  he  returned  to  the  Old  Country  to 
become  Bishop  of  Cloyne.  It  is  noteworthy  that  the  name 
Berkeley  was  also  significantly  chosen  in  1860  for  the  townsite 
of  the  State  University  of  California  and  as  the  Rev.  Dr.  Horace 
Bushnell,  the  Connecticut  and  New  England  Congregationalist 
Leader  of  thought  on  Berkeleian  lines  of  Christian  nurture,  had 
some  part  in  selecting  that  site,  it  is  not  improbable  that  he  also 
had  something  to  do  with  the  choice  of  the  name.  The  historic 
residence  of  the  Rev.  Dr.  Jarvis  with  whom  Bishop  Williams  had 
been  associated  in  his  diaconate  had  been  given  for  the  Divinity 
School  and  in  that  the  Bishop  took  up  his  residence  for  the 
remainder  of  his  life.  The  spacious  building  provided  also  for  all 
the  first  needs  of  dormitory,  chapel,  library,  lecture-rooms,  etc., 
for  the  Divinity  School.  And  there,  for  nearly  fifty  years,  even 
up  to  classes  in  his  sick  room  in  his  last  lingering  illness,  the 


BISHOP    JOHN    WILLIAMS  17 

successive  generations  of  students  felt  that  factor  back  of  all  else 
in  any  curriculum,  the  spell  and  subtle  discipling  of  his  person- 
ality. It  is  safe  to  say  that  any  one  who  in  the  course  came 
under  that  personality,  will  understand  why  the  objective  chosen 
for  this  sketch  was  to  show  that  outstanding  symmetry  of  his  power 
in  its  fine  equilibrium  of  mind  and  heart,  and  grace  of  modesty 
and  wit  of  his  lectures,  which  was  so  well  scaled  to  the  big  man. 
That  spacious  Middletown  Library  with  its  mahogany  doors,  and 
its  Greek  columns  and  its  Etruscan  ornament,  and  its  well  worn 
volumes,  shelf  on  shelf,  seeming  to  begrudge  even  window  space; 
and  those  choice  portraits  and  engravings  clustering  closely  to- 
gether over  and  on  the  mantel,  as  if  they  were  in  danger  of  being 
"skyed,"  or  crowded  into  corners,  some  near  the  ceiling,  or 
clinging  timidly  to  places  inaccessible  to  the  ever  aggressive  books, 
books,  books;  the  big  table  desk  in  the  centre,  and  the  great 
capacious  easy-chairs;  and  then  that  smaller  desk,  off  by  itself, 
and  the  revolving  book  case,  and,  sitting  near  it  in  long  purple 
study-wrapper,  —  "The  Bishop."  How  many  will  have  all  that 
come  back  to  them!  Cameras  have  taken  the  picture.  Pen 
sketches  have  reproduced  it  —  spectacles  tossed  up  over  the  brow 
and  all  —  but  the  generations  of  Berkeley  Divinity  School  men 
who  have  sat  there  and  listened  to  him,  in  lectures  or  in  lighter 
vein,  will  carry  the  impressions  through  life  as  no  artificial  process 
can.  Seated  in  that  familiar  corner  by  the  window,  gripping  the 
attention  of  every  one  by  his  limpid  English  and  arresting  way  of 
putting  his  points,  with  that  "art  of  concealing  art"  in  atmos- 
phering  us  in  his  logic  and  distinctions,  occasionally  pulling  down 
those  spectacles,  which  in  seeing  power  seemed  to  symbolize  the 
noble  brow  to  which  they  were  uplifted,  in  order  to  read  some 
clinching  quotation  and  withal  a  pertinent  side  remark  to  broaden 
our  faces  with  a  smile  or  a  pat  anecdote  to  send  us  into  a  gale 
of  laughter  —  no  there  were  no  "dry  bones"  of  theology,  nor  of 
any  other  one  of  his  compendious  subjects,  rattling  there!  Even 
the  skeletons  of  his  Topics  carefully  prepared  for  our  study  and 
retention  seemed  to  have  a  grin  of  vitality  about  them. 

Much  might  be  cited  in  evidence  of  the  great  learning  and 
ripe  scholarship  which  he  brought  to  his  students.  Dr.  Hitchings 
says:  "The  Bishop's  mind  always  impressed  me  as  being  an 
orderly   arranged   storehouse   where   every  package   of   knowledge 


18  SOLDIER   AND   SERVANT   SERIES 

was  labelled  and  could  be  taken  down  and  used  at  will.  His  power 
of  concentration  of  thought  was  remarkable."  His  balance  of 
mind  and  heart  was  notably  manifest  in  that  not  always  possessed 
combination  of  wide  learning  with  singular  skill  in  imparting  it. 
Those  halcyon  Divinity  School  days  too  had  their  own  "lighter 
vein."  All  students  there  of  a  generation  ago  will  remember 
"Tim,"  the  faithful  janitor,  —  so  faithful  that,  when  told  to  do 
anything,  he  showed  a  charming  indifference  to  any  after  circum- 
stances which  might  be  supposed  to  modify  directions,  —  any  "law 
of  the  conditioned,"  for  Tim  was  no  metaphysician.  Now  it  so 
happened,  one  morning,  when  the  Bishop  was  attending  the  chapel 
services  that  his  good  housekeeper,  thinking  he  was  in  his  library, 
asked  Tim  to  get  from  him  certain  keys  she  wished  to  use.  Tim 
obediently  started  out.  Going  to  the  library,  and  not  finding  the 
Bishop  there,  he  soon  learned  of  the  chapel  service,  and  proceeded 
forthwith  to  the  principal  chapel  door,  which  is  on  the  "Quad" 
side.  Just  as  Tim  opened  the  door,  the  epistoler  had  announced, 
"Here  endeth  the  epistle."  The  Bishop  was  the  gospeller,  but 
before  he  could  make  the  customary  announcement,  in  that  Divinity 
School  chapel  of  punctilious  rubrical  propriety,  was  heard  from  the 
side  door,  in  regardless,   if   unconscious   innovation  by   our  good 

Roman  brother  Tim,  "If  you  please,  sir.  Miss  T wants  the 

keys."     "Very  well,  you  go  into  the  house  and  get  them.     The 

is  written  in  the  "  came  back  from  the  Bishop  in 

his  place  with  all  unruffled  rubrical  order  and  readiness,  and  with 
that  dignity  that  ever  characterized  Bishop  Williams  in  service 
and  out. 

And  this  glimpse  of  the  Bishop  in  his  early  days  in  Middle- 
town  from  Some  Reminiscences  of  him  by  one  intimately  connected 
with  him  for  many  years  both  as  a  personal  friend  honored  with 
his  confidence  and  affection,  and  as  long-time  Treasurer  of  the 
Divinity  School  and  most  enterprising  and  efficient  in  increasing 
its  endowment,  Mr.  Charles  E.  Jackson,  of  Middletown,  is  signifi- 
cant of  the  Bishop's  popular  ways  with  town  and  gown.  "Turning 
back  to  life  in  Middletown  in  the  60's  and  later,  one  may  remem- 
ber frequently  seeing  Bishop  Williams  on  the  street  and  seldom 
alone.  Sometimes  amid  a  group  of  students  or  walking  with  two 
or  three;  sometimes  with  the  clergy,  of  whom  many  were  there  — 
Dr.  Goodwin,  rector  of  the  parish;    Drs.  Harwood,  Coit,  Fuller, 


BISHOP    JOHN    WILLIAMS  19 

de  Koven,  Davies,  Gardiner,  Townsend,  Binney  and  others;  some- 
times stopping  for  a  chat  at  the  old  rectory  (standing  on  the 
present  site  of  Holy  Trinity  Church)  and  often  meeting  his  life- 
long friends  of  the  lay  famihes  —  Alsop,  Johnson,  Casey,  Jackson, 
Russell,  Glover,  Hackstaff,  Hubbard,  Pelton  and  many  others. 
Always  a  smile,  a  pleasant  word,  and  a  handshake,  and  whether 
he  met  Jew  or  Gentile,  Catholic  or  Protestant,  all  knew  Bishop 
Williams  and  called  him  friend, 

"In  the  earlier  days  of  the  school,  when  the  learned  and 
genial  Dr.  Thomas  W.  Coit  lived  in  Troy,  he  would  come  in  the 
spring  and  autumn  to  lecture  to  the  students,  and  it  was  remarked 
by  some  witty  person  that  we  could  always  expect  Dr.  Coit, 
Connecticut  River  shad  and  Barnum's  circus  at  the  same  time 
every  spring.  The  Bishop's  house  was  always  a  center,  and  its 
hospitality  generous  and  abundant.  During  the  days  at  home  you 
would  find  him  in  his  library  working,  writing  or  reading,  and  in 
the  evening  during  his  mother's  life,  and  afterwards,  sitting  in  a 
rocking  chair  in  the  southwest  corner  of  the  parlor  smoking  his 
cigar  and  reading  or  chatting." 

And  Bishop  William  Stevens  Perry  says  of  him  in  his  sketch 
in  The  Episcopate  in  America,  "By  his  writings,  his  scholarship, 
his  culture,  his  gifts  as  an  orator,  his  wise  judgment  and  inflexible 
fairness,  he  is  in  every  sense  the  most  pi-ominent  prelate  in 
America."  But  an  extended  study  of  him,  both  as  a  proponent 
and  object  lesson  of  that  term,  which  used  to  be  oftener  heard 
than  now,  "Connecticut  Churchmanship"  would  well  interpret  the 
Catholic  mindedness  conveyed  in  such  Churchmanship  in  his  own 
exhibition  of  its  best  type  of  Catholic  mindedness.  The  symmetry 
of  his  greatness  of  mind  and  heart  really  featured  a  standard  of 
personal  poise  of  Catholic-mindedness.  One  need  but  read  his 
three  historical  addresses  in  connection  with  the  Centenary  Cele- 
bration of  the  consecration  of  Bishop  Seabury,  delivered  at  the 
successive  Conventions  of  the  Diocese  of  Connecticut  of  1883, 
1884,  and  1885  to  discern  "between  the  lines"  his  conception  of 
"Connecticut  Churchmanship,"  from  its  antecedents.  For  example, 
in  tracing  what  he  called  "the  true  beginnings  of  what  was  to 
become  the  Diocese  of  Connecticut,"  he  says  "The  old  faith  en- 
shrined in  the  historic  creeds  of  the  Prayer  Book;  the  law  and 
life  of  worship  embodied  in  its  formularies,  all  leading  up  to  and 


20  SOLDIER   AND   SERVANT    SERIES 

centering    in    the    highest    act    of    Christian    worship,    the    Holy 
Eucharist;    its  ideal  of  the  Christian  life  taught  in  its  catechism 
and  carried  out  in  all  its  offices  from  baptism  to  burial;  on  these 
foundations  no  broader   and  no  narrower,  was  our   Church  here 
built  up.     God  grant  that  on  these  foundations  it  may  stand  till 
time   shall   end."     And   two   points   of   the   perennial    competence 
and  local  adaptation  of  that  Churchmanship  seem  to  be,  first,  its 
clearness,  positiveness  and  tenacity  of  essential  traditions  and,  second. 
Its   flexibility    for   passing   conditions.     The    willingness    to    spend 
and  be  spent  under  the  non-juring  phases  of  that  inherited  Cath- 
olicity as  well  as  under  its  formidable  opposition  when  brought 
to  Connecticut  by  its  first  Bishop,  showed  how  little  mere  oppor- 
tunism there  was  in  it.     Its  "full  orbed"  availability  like  sunlight 
illuminating  both   heights   and   valleys   of   our   Church   expansion 
in  this  country  since,  on  the  Pacific  as  this  writer  has  good  reason 
to  know,  as  well  as  on  the  Atlantic,  expresses  all  just  "modernism" 
while  it  never  depresses  vital  fundamentals.     What  the  Rev.  Dr. 
Beardsley  wrote  over  two  score  years  ago  might  here  and  there 
find  echo  today  even  though  other  "movements"  have  often  un- 
consciously absorbed   its   genius:     "Travel   East   or   West,   North 
or  South,  go  where  you  will  over  this  broad  land,  speak  aloud 
the  name  of  "Connecticut  Churchman"  and  if  you  do   not  find 
some  one  to  claim  it,  you  will   find  many  to  rise  up  and  do  it 
honor."     Bishop  Williams  visiting  England  in  his  earlier  life  found 
many   things   in   those   years   of    the   Oxford    Movement   and   its 
leaders,  congenial  to  this  inherited  Church  tradition  of  his  own. 
And     curiously    enough     there    has     recently     appeared     in     the 
English  Church  press  a  justification  of  his  widely  quoted  saying 
to  the  effect  that  in  bringing  to  the  American  Church  the  Scotch 
Communion  office,  as  commended  in  the  Concordat,  Seabury  gave 
us  a  greater  boon  even  than  in  the  succession  in  the  episcopate. 
At  the  time  of  this  writing  when  pressing  questions  of  Prayer  Book 
revision  are  rife  in  the  Mother  Country,  the  last  copy  at  hand  of 
The  Church  Times  gives  a  pertinent  account  of  a  late  Diocesan 
Conference  at  Oxford.     It   quotes   a  strong  advocate   for   certain 
alterations  in  the  English  office  for  the  Holy  Communion  and  the 
Prayer  of  Consecration  as  appealing  to  the  office  Seabury  brought 
over  under  the  Concordat  with  the  Scottish  Church.     The  proposed 
changes,  commented   the  speaker,   "are  almost  exactly   like  what 


CONNECTICUT    DELEGATION    TO    SEABURY 
CENTENARY   1884 

Standing  (left  to  right) — Rev.  Messrs.  Jarvis,  Nichols,  Hart. 
Sitting — Rev.  Dr.  Beardsley,  Bishop  Williams 


CHALICE    AND    PATEX 

Presented  to  the  Scottish  Church  from  Connecticut,  1884 


BISPIOP    JOHN    WILLIAMS  21 

the  Church  in  America  uses,  and  embody  the  same  principle  as 
the  Scottish  rite."  Shade  of  Seabury!  Connecticut  Churchman- 
ship  fairly  voiced  in  a  Diocesan  Conference  "Oxford  Movement" 
of  1923! 

V. 

VISIT  TO  ENGLAND  AND  SCOTLAND  IN    1884. 

When  it  was  proposed  by  the  Scottish  Church  to  hold  a 
worthy  celebration  of  the  centenary  of  Bishop  Seabury's  consecra- 
tion, the  logical  one  to  become  a  central  figure  in  that  celebration 
was  the  successor  in  the  See  of  Seabury.  The  Diocese  of  Con- 
necticut became  keenly  interested  in  it  and  made  it  the  occasion 
for  preparatory  measures  and  historical  revival  of  the  Seabury 
origins.  A  commemorative  service  of  the  election  which  took  place 
on  the  Festival  of  the  Annunciation  in  1783  was  held  and  in  the 
Bishop's  sermon  and  otherwise  at  the  Diocesan  Conventions  of 
1883,  1884,  and  1885  much  attention  was  given  to  the  "Seabury 
Centenary."  A  full  Report  of  all  was  published  in  America  as 
well  as  one  in  Scotland,  with  a  wealth  of  historical  matter.  Bishop 
Williams  had  brought  the  attention  of  the  coming  Anniversary 
to  the  Diocesan  Convention  of  1881  and  steps  were  taken  leading 
to  the  Connecticut  celebration  on  the  14th  of  November,  1884, 
the  actual  anniversary.  He  accepted  the  invitation  to  attend  the 
Aberdeen  celebration,  which  for  purpose  of  convenience  was  ap- 
pointed for  the  earlier  dates,  October  7  and  8.  The  Diocesan 
Convention  of  1884  heard  of  this  "with  great  satisfaction"  and 
appointed  "a  representation  to  go  with  him,  the  Rev.  Dr.  E.  E. 
Beardsley,  the  R.ev.  Samuel  F.  Jarvis,  the  Rev.  Samuel  Hart  and 
the  Rev.  WiHiam  F.  Nichols,  the  last  named  being  his  Chaplain 
and  Secretary.  The  Bishop  kept  a  Diary  of  jottings  of  his  jour- 
neyings  through  England  and  Scotland,  which  enables  us 
fortunately  to  have  from  his  own  pen  some  excerpts  to  include 
here,  though  only  a  few  of  the  most  characteristic  can  come 
within  the  confines  of  this  sketch. 

The  English  itinerary  was  planned  with  a  view  to  visiting 
the  principal  Cathedrals,  and  the  Diary,  like  the  Bishop's  fuller 
verbal  illumination  of  each  historic  spot,  showed  his  extraordinary 
scope  and  facile  use  of  his  familiarity  with  English  Church  lore. 


22  SOLDIER   AND   SERVANT    SERIES 

Sometimes  a  question  of  the  Cathedral  interest  addressed  to  the 
Verger  unintentionally  threw  that  voluble  individual  off  the  track 
of  his  droning  monologue.  The  Diary  calls  attention  at  Chester 
Cathedral  to  an  odd  mistake,  noted  by  the  keen  eye  of  the  Bishop, 
in  the  inscription  on  the  tomb  of  Bishop  Pearson  and  in  the  very 
Creed  of  which  he  wrote,  "resurrection  of  the  dead"  is  substituted 
for  "resurrection  of  the  body."  In  Westminster  Abbey  Canon 
Westcott  (afterwards  Bishop  of  Durham),  who  took  the  party 
around,  is  noted  as  "the  learned  biblical  scholar  whose  commentary 
on  St.  John's  Epistles  is  the  noblest  I  ever  read.  —  He  showed 
us,  what  in  my  boyhood  I  had  longed  to  see,  the  hideous  wax 
figures  of  Charles  II,  William  and  Mary,  Anne,  and,  m.ore  hideous 
than  all,  Elizabeth.  One  sight  sufficed.  —  a  kitten  was  sitting 
much  at  home  on  a  seat  under  Andre's  tomb  and  playing  with 
everybody  that  came."  At  St.  Paul's,  August  3,  he  went  to  hear 
Liddon  and  wrote  a  brief  synopsis  of  his  sermon  from  Psalm  17:3, 
adding  "there  were  passages  of  great  eloquence  and  he  held  his 
audience  in  his  hand."  His  sight-seeing  carried  him  to  the  Tower, 
Madame  Tussaud's  "Waxworks"  and  other  places  on  the  "beaten 
path,"  but  there  were  exceptional  notes.  "August  5.  In  the 
evening  we  got  into  the  House  of  Commons  and  heard  the  debate 
in  Committee  on  granting  300,000  pounds  to  Government  to  get 
General  Gordon  out  of  the  scrape  they  had  got  him  into.  It  was 
spicy  enough.  Mr.  Gladstone,  Mr.  Labouchere,  Sir  Wilfrid  Law- 
son,  Mr.  Foster,  Sir  Stafford  Northcote,  the  Marquis  of  Harting- 
ton,  Mr.  Bourke  and  Mr.  Ashmead-Bartlett  (received  with  groans) 
spoke.  And  it  was  an  exceptional  chance."  Friday,  8th.  "We 
drove  (Mr.  Nichols  and  myself)  to  Addington  Park.  (Then  a 
country  seat  of  the  Archbishop  of  Canterbury.)  The  Archbishop 
(Dr.  Benson)  was  engaged  at  the  moment  and  a  young  clergyman 
from  Truro  took  us  into  the  Park.  The  Archbishop  joined  us  at 
luncheon  and  afterwards  we  sat  under  the  great  cedar  of  Lebanon 
and  had  a  long,  free,  and  even  confidential  talk  about  Church 
matters.  Our  conversation  is  not  for  record."  From  another's 
memorandum  it  may  be  of  interest  to  add  "The  Archbishop  took 
our  Bishop  and  me  to  the  Chapel  and  there  he  and  Bishop  Williams 
offered  prayer  for  the  Church  of  the  two  countries,  first  Archbishop 
Benson  using  the  second  and  third  Good  Friday  Collects,  then 
the  Collects  for  Unity,  our  Bishop  using  the  Collect  to  the  Holy 


BISHOP    JOHN    WILLIAMS  23 

Ghost,  adapting  it  "as  for  ourselves,  so  for  the  Churches  we 
represent,"  the  Collect  for  St.  Simon  and  St.  Jude,  the  Archbishop 
concluding  with  the  Lord's  Prayer  and  "The  Lord  bless  us  and 
keep  us,"  etc.  I  shall  never  forget  the  quiet  little  service."  Sun- 
day 10th  —  went  to  St.  Peter's  ad  Vinctda  in  the  Tower,  where 
was  a  good  service  and  a  good  sermon.  It  was  no  light  thing  to 
worship  there."  —  "In  the  afternoon  to  the  Abbey,  where  a  'Lord 
Dundreary'  in  a  surplice  intoned  with  an  execrable  drawl  and  lisp; 
the  worst  intoning  I  ever  heard."  —  "Canon  Westcott  preached 
a  noble  sermon."  August  15  —  P.  M.  "To  Bishopsbourne,  dear 
old  Hooker's  Church;  pulpit  and  communion  table  the  same; 
church  well  restored."  August  19  —  "Went  to  Salisbury  —  spent 
an  hour  with  the  Bishop  (Moberly.)  He  is  very  feeble  and  fail- 
ing; but  we  had  a  good  deal  of  pleasant  conversation."  In  Oxford 
for  Sunday,  August  24th.  "Went  to  St.  Mary's.  When  I  was 
last  there  in  1840,  Newman  was  Vicar  and  Pusey,  Hawkins,  Keble, 
Sam'l  Wilberforce,  R.  I.  Wilberforce,  Isaac  Williams,  Sewall, 
Bloxam,  J.  B.  Mozley  and  many  more  were  either  here  or  came 
here  and  all  are  now  (1884)  gone  except  Newman  and  Copeland 
and  C.  I  hear  is  so  broken  up  that  I  could  not  go  to  see  him.  —  In 
the  afternoon  went  to  Christ  Church  Cathedral;  the  last  time  I 
was  there  I  heard  Dr.  Pusey  preach  forty-four  years  ago;  now  I 
passed  over  his  grave.  Dean  Liddell  was  in  his  stall  but  seemed 
an  old  man. —  After  service  we  went  into  Christ  Church  meadows, 
and  then  into  Oriel  Quadrangle,  where  I  looked  up  at  the  windows 
of  Newman's  room:  eheu!  eheu!  and  at  the  old  common  roou. 
where  I  spent  so  many  pleasant  hours.  How  homelike  and  yei 
how  strange  Oxford  seems!  August  25th  —  To  Trinity  College; 
saw  Copeland's  old  rooms  where  I  had  so  many  pleasant  hours, 
the  Chapel,  the  Hall,  the  Commou  Room  where  I  used  to  sit  next 
to  dear  old  Dr.  Ingram,  and  the  old  lime  tree  walk.  How  pleasant 
and  yet  how  sad  it  all  was! — Well!  do  what  they  will,  it  is 
Oxford  still,  but  not  the  Oxford  I  knew.  August  26th,  Tuesday. 
—  To  Littlemore  which  I  remember  so  well.  But  the  chapel  has 
been  enlarged  by  adding  a  chancel  and  a  tower.  Still,  it  had 
many  memories  for  me.  Then  we  went  to  see  Newman's  rooms, 
etc.,  especially  his  library,  where  he  wrote  his  last  things  in  the 
Church  of  England.  —  Dined  in  the  evening  at  Dr.  Hatch's.  The 
company  beside  ourselves  and  the  Doctor's  two  sons.  Dr.  Chase, 


24  SOLDIER   AND   SERVANT    SERIES 

Principal  of  St.  Mary's  Hall;  Professor  Sayce;  Prof.  Driver,  Dr. 
Pusey's  successor.  A  pleasant  evening  and  a  reminder  of  old 
Oxford  days."  The  Diary  notes  stop  at  Cambridge  (where  the 
Bishop  was  much  interested  in  rare  documents  in  the  Library  of 
Corpus  Christi  and  University  Colleges  and  other  Colleges),  at 
Ely,  Peterboro,  Lincoln,  York,  Ripon,  Fountains  Abbey,  Durham, 
Edinburgh,  each  eliciting  characteristic  notes  of  comment.  When 
visiting  Holyrood,  September  8th,  the  Bishop  writes,  "I  could  not 
but  remember  how  deeply  my  dear  Mother  was  interested  in  it 
when  we  were  there  together  in  1840.  Eheu!"  Saturday,  Sep- 
tember 13th.  —  "Went  with  the  Doanes  and  Eliots  —  to  Dry- 
burgh,  Abbotsford,  Melrose,  a  dense  fog  in  'Auld  Reekie,'  but  at 
Melrose  a  clear  charming  autumnal  day  without  a  cloud.  What 
I  specially  desired  to  see  this  time  at  Abbotsford  were  the  por- 
traits of  Tom  Purdie,  Pete  Matheson;  the  valet,  J.  Simpson,  and 
William  Laidlaw,  and  I  found  them.  All  else  was  unchanged  from 
what  I  saw  in  1840."  Then  to  Dunfermline,  Stirling  and  through 
the  lake  country,  "the  same  journey  I  took  with  my  Mother  in 
1840."  Saturday,  Sept.  20,  "a  memorable  day,  from  beginning 
to  end  a  dream  of  delight,  and  I  hope  of  something  better.  lona! 
next  to  Jerusalem  what  I  had  longed  to  see"  —  then  to  Staff  a, 
and  Monday  22  from  Oban  through  Loch  Elive  to  Glencoe  and 
Ballachulish.  At  Ballachulish  "we  reached  St.  John's  Church, 
the  Church  of  a  parish  made  up  of  old  hereditary  Churchmen, 
descendants  of  the  faithful  'Men  of  Appin.'  I  had  determined 
before  I  left  America  to  see  them  if  I  could  and  it  was  a  great 
joy  to  me  to  carry  out  my  wish."  —  "The  incumbent  gave  us 
Gaelic  Prayer  Books  and  showed  us  the  paten  and  chalice  from 
which  the  'men  of  Appin'  received  the  Holy  Communion  before 
they  went  to  Culloden"  (battlefield.)  He  took  us  "to  see  some 
of  the  old  men.  They  were  most  eager  in  their  expressions  of 
delight  at  a  visit  from  a  bishop  3,000  miles  away.  I  heard  they 
had  had  prayers  for  us  the  Sunday  we  were  on  the  Atlantic." 
Thence  by  Caledonian  Canal  to  Inverness  with  a  trip  to  Culloden 
and  Culloden  House,  to  Elgin  through  Aberdeen,  to  Braemar, 
Perth,  Dundee,  Arbroath,  St.  Andrew's,  Forfar,  Glamis'  Castle." 
At  Inverness  the  Bishop  preached —  (as  he  did  some  Sundays  on 
the  journeyings  elsewhere)  and  notes  that  he  celebrated  the  Holy 
Communion  "with  the  Scottish  Rite,"  reaching  Aberdeen  for  the 


BISHOP    JOHN    WILLIAMS  25 

celebration  Saturday,  October  4.  In  that  celebration  he  was  nat- 
urally a  central  figure,  preaching  and  making  the  addresses  during 
the  following  week,  the  celebration  proper  covering  October  7, 
8,  9,  with  some  eighteen  bishops  and  two  hundred  clergy  present, 
representing  the  Scottish,  English,  Irish,  American  and  Colonial 
Churches,  and  vast  congregations  of  the  laity.  Outstanding  in  the 
memorable  program  were  the  presentation  of  addresses  from  the 
American  House  of  Bishops  and  Diocese  of  Connecticut  with 
responses,  presentation  from  the  Church  in  Scotland  of  ornate 
pastoral  staff  to  Bishop  Williams,  and  of  chalice  and  paten  from 
Connecticut  to  the  Scottish  Church.  Throughout  it  all  the  Bishop 
of  Connecticut  was  recognized  in  the  term  used  of  him  by  Bishop 
Doane  as  a  "Prince  among  prelates."  His  own  brief  modest  notes 
are  of  the  welcome  "the  hospitality  is  unbounded  and  of  the 
heartiest  kind."  Of  the  great  opening  service  at  which  he  preached 
"It  was  a  service  never  to  be  forgotten."  —  "A  day  of  great  en- 
joyment" was  October  8th,  "central  day  of  the  Centenary." 
Saturday,  October  11,  —  "The  overwhelming  kindness  lasted  to 
the  very  end  and  I  left  feeling  sad  to  part  with  so  many  I  could 
never  in  this  life  see  again  and  yet  glad  to  set  my  face  westward." 
The  Diary  after  brief  references  to  Carlisle,  Furness  Abbey,  the 
English  Lake  Country  —  "Rydal  where  was  Wordsworth's  home:  I 
remember  well  the  coming  there  with  the  poet  in  1840"  —  through 
which  the  returning  party  passed  on  his  way  to  Liverpool,  and  to 
the  sailing  on  the  "Germanic,"  October  15th,  and  after  a  rough 
and  uncomfortable  voyage  reaching  New  York.  The  26th 
concludes  with  a  characteristic  reflection,  "I  am  thankful  to  have 
gone  on  such  an  errand,  tho'  I  always  was  oppressed  with  feeling 
how  much  better  than  I  did  another  might  have  done,  and  I  can 
never  forget  the  occasion  or  the  great  kindness  shown  me  —  not 
as  I  well  knew  on  my  account  but  because  I  was  Seabury's  suc- 
cessor. It  was  an  occasion  greater  than  one  supposed  till  one 
came  to  it:  in  its  memories,  in  present  gifts  of  God,  in  outlook 
for  the  future. 

For  preservation  and  health  all  thro  I  owe  all  thanks  to  Him 
who  has  ever  given  me  blessings  in  undeserved  abundance."  Could 
volumes  of  Biography  portray  the  real  humbleness  of  heart  that 
rounded  his  greatness  of  mind  more  winningly  than  his  own  brief 
sketch  in  that  soliloquy-like  revelation  of  his  private  Diary? 


26  SOLDIER  AND   SERVANT   SERIES 

VI. 

LATER  YEARS  AND  LAST  DAYS. 

In  1887,  Bishop  Williams  became  the  Senior  and  Presiding 
Bishop  of  the  American  Church,  having  previously  been  the  first 
Chairman  elected  by  the  House  of  Bishops,  bringing  to  him  at 
three  score  and  ten  the  no  slight  addition  of  responsibilities  which 
weighed  upon  him.  Visiting  his  life-long  friend,  Mr.  J.  Pierpont 
Morgan,  of  New  York,  somewhere  about  that  time,  he  was  shown 
by  his  host  a  private  gymnasium  room  in  which  there  was  a 
"Punching  Bag"  for  active  exercise.  While  Mr.  Morgan  was  ex- 
hibiting its  use  in  vigorous  wallops  straight  from  the  shoulder, 
the  Bishop  watched  him  intently  and  feelingly  put  in  a  word: 
"Pierpont,  how  I  wish  I  had  that  to  punch  after  reading  my 
morning  mail!"  And  how  that  mail  reflected  the  multifarious 
demands  upon  his  time  and  thought  and  heart,  even  in  that  part 
of  his  correspondence  to  which  the  Secretary  had  to  be  confidentially 
admitted!  Parish  and  institutional  and  personal  problems  of 
course;  Diocesan  and  national  and  international  questions  in  a 
sort  of  quasi  appeal  to  a  Judge  of  supreme  appeal;  canonical  and 
constitutional  points;  doctrinal  beairings;  Jiturgiological  ulsages; 
nice  shades  of  casuistry;  perplexities  of  policy;  local  and  general 
all  found  their  way  to  him  in  an  unceasing  train.  And  many  a 
solution  carried  relief  and  settlement  over  the  face  of  the  Church. 
And  then  in  print  of  Church  paper  or  Review,  clearing  up  some 
passing  confusion  of  thought  with  crystal  insight  brought  him 
letters  of  devout  thankfulness  and  changed  convictions  and  careers. 
Permanent  volumes  from  his  pen  like  his  Bedell  Lectures,  —  The 
World's  Witness  to  Jesus  Christ,  his  Bishop  Paddock  Lectures  on 
Studies  on  the  English  Reformation,  his  Studies  in  the  Book  of 
Acts  and  his  syllabi  for  his  Lectures  on  Theology,  Church  History, 
the  Prayer  Book  and  other  topics  of  his  fine  scholarship  strengthened 
the  Apologetics  and  other  teaching  of  the  Church.  Earlier  came 
A  Translation  of  Ancient  Hymns,  already  noted  above,  and 
Thoughts  on  the  Miracles.  He  had  edited  in  1849,  Hawkstone, 
"a  tale  in  two  volumes,"  Browne's  Exposition  of  the  Thirty-nine 
Articles  and  had  written  some  Chapters  of  a  novel  left  incomplete. 
Many  a  bit  of  verse,  sometimes  of  tender  sentiment  and  other 
times  witty  skits,  will  also  be  remembered  of  him.     But  his  living 


BISHOP    JOHN    WILLIAMS  27 

epistle  was  written  far  more  widely  and  indelibly  in  the  characters 
of  those  who  came  under  his  immediate  influence  than  in  any  paged 
characters  of  the  alphabet. 

His  Secretaries  had  no  mere  monotony  of  dictation  or  of  copy- 
ing —  and  they  had  no  typewriters.  He  would  sometimes  while 
trying  to  decipher  an  indistinct  script,  like  Dean  Stanley's  tenuous 
lines,  say  "Come  here  —  see  if  you  can  make  anything  out  of  that 
sentence:  the  writer  marks  the  letter  as  private  and  confidential 
but  that  is  unnecessary;  no  earthly  man  can  read  it  anyway!" 
Then  in  the  days  of  autograph  he  with  a  twinkle  in  his  eye  said 
to  the  Secretary,  "You  answer  this."  Following  orders  the  Secre- 
tary did  so  and  received  in  biting  sarcasm  an  effusive  acknowledg- 
ment of  his  "highly  valued  autograph!" 

Of  the  Bishop's  work  as  an  administrator  of  the  Diocese  the 
Rev.  Dr.  Samuel  Hart,  in  somq  respects  probably  his  most  scholarly 
student,  and  a  successor  as  Dean  of  the  Divinity  School,  in  a 
worthy  memorial  sermon  preached  not  long  after  the  Bishop's  death 
furnishes  us  a  "memory"  which  we  can  well  quote  for  this  sketch, 
as  follows:  "He  administered  the  Diocese  through  years  of  in- 
creased activity  in  some  departments  of  Church  work;  a  time  of 
the  erection  and  enlargement  and  decoration  of  Church  edifices 
and  of  other  buildings  for  parish  purposes;  a  time  in  which  much 
attention  has  been  given  to  the  appointments  for  worship  and  tu< 
accessories  of  divine  service;  a  time  of  the  strengthening  of  old 
educational  institutions  and  the  establishment  of  new  ones;  a 
time  of  quickened  activity  in  diocesan  and  domestic  and  foreign 
missionary  work;  a  time  of  adapting  or  devising  forms  in  which 
the  external  life  of  the  Church  may  be  expressed  and  its  benevolent 
work  carried  on;  a  time  of  historic  anniversaries,  and  therefore 
of  renewed  interest  in  our  origins  and  our  principles.  Look  at  the 
index  of  our  (Connecticut)  Journals,  and  you  will  see  how  much 
of  all  this  was  due  to  the  suggestion  of  our  Bishop."  And  Dr. 
Hart  signalizes  in  the  indefatigable  visitations  of  the  Diocese  the 
work  to  be  found  "in  the  simple  exhortations  which  for  nearly 
half  a  century  he  gave  to  the  'young  men  and  maidens,  the  old 
men  and  children'  who  came  to  receive  from  him  God's  blessing 
by  and  with  the  laying  on  of  hands."  With  the  Bishop's  by  no 
means  always  robust  health  he  sought  wise  and  enjoyable  holidays, 
when  he  could  at  Lake  George,  the  history  of  old  Fort  Ticonderoga 


28  SOLDIER  AND   SERVANT   SERIES 

and  other  points  appealing  to  him,  as  well  as  the  opportunity  to 
emulate  Isaak  Walton,  in  which  the  Bishop  was  accredited  as  being 
the  best  fisherman  on  the  Lake.  There,  too,  his  winsomeness  made 
him  many  friends  among  the  other  holiday  seekers  and  his  faithful 
boatman  was  his  welcome  guest  at  Middletown. 

Bishop  Doane,  of  Albany,  whom  Bishop  Williams  often  ad- 
dresses in  their  frequent  correspondence  as  Carissime,  has  given 
us  this  loving  epitome  of  the  man:  "No  one  could  see  the  gift  of 
natural  manhood  of  Bishop  Williams  without  the  sense  of  dignity 
and  power  and  will  and  intellect  they  were  stamped  upon  it.  He 
was  a  spiritual  prince  from  the  great  dome  of  his  head  in  every 
lineament  of  his  face,  his  keen  eye,  his  firm  lips,  his  strong  chin, 
his  over-arching  brow,  his  finely  moulded  nose,  his  commanding 
presence,  his  firm  tread.  He  was  a  man  men  turned  to  look  at 
and  staid  to  look  up  to,  not  merely  for  his  height  in  inches  but 
for  the  exaltation  of  his  bearing." 

With  his  deep  tenderness  of  sentiment  ever  in  the  background 
of  his  life,  he  never  married  and  his  mother  had  his  earthly  un- 
divided home  affection  and  devotion.  After  her  death  he  was 
heard  to  sigh  in  his  sleep  and  say  "there  is  now  no  one  left  to 
close  my  eyes"  and  undoubtedly  had  lonely  years,  though  with  a 
poise  of  reticence  and  outward  cheer.  Easter  he  once  said  meant 
more  to  him  than  Christmas  in  his  hearthstone  associations.  Big- 
ness of  heart  had  that  demonstration  earthward  as  well  as  in  all 
the  affectionate  cast  of  his  companionships  and  letters.  And  on 
the  side  towards  God  his  whole  life  and  ministry  seemed  an  object 
lesson  of  that  interpretation  of  the  New  Testament  Gospel  of  love 
as  a  fruit  of  the  Holy  Spirit,  which  functions  in  steady-going  char- 
acter back  of  any  passing  feelings.  Bishop  Butler's  profound 
distinction  between  the  active  habit  and  the  passive  impression  had 
evidently  entered  into  the  theory  of  his  life  as  it  did  into  his  teaching 
of  practical  religion  as  against  the  New  England  traditions  of 
revival  and  excitement,  which  the  Reverend  Dr.  Horace  Bushnell 
did  so  much  to  counteract.  Indeed  may  it  not  have  been  partly 
the  exhaustive  study  and  illumination  of  the  New  Testament  dis- 
tinction in  using  the  different  words  for  love  that  made  him  admire 
Westcott's  St.  John's  Epistles  as  "the  noblest  I  ever  read"  as 
noted  in  his  Diary  above  when  he  met  the  Canon  at  Westminster 
Abbey!      Such  a  statement  as  this  from  Westcott's  Commentary 


From  a  Photograph  Taken   1893 


The  Presiding  Bishop  1887-1899 


BISHOP    JOHN    WILLIAMS  29 

would  especially  appeal  to  him  as  he  was  trying  to  live  its  illustra- 
tion: "From  a  consideration  of  (many)  passages  it  will  be  seen 
that  agapan,  agape  are  an  expression  of  character,  determined,  as 
we  are  forced  to  conceive  of  things,  by  will  and  not  of  spontaneous, 
natural  emotion.  In  this  sense  'love'  is  the  willing  communication 
to  others  of  that  which  we  have  and  are;  and  the  exact  opposite 
of  that  passion  which  is  the  desire  of  personal  appropriation." 
Many  will  recall  that  quoted  maxim  of  Bishop  Williams,  "Doe 
ye  nexte  Thynge"  as  the  calm  philosophy  for  the  carry  on  of  life. 

The  free-hand  lines  of  this  sketch  drawn  from  "Memories  here 
and  there"  of  others  as  well  as  of  the  writer  will  accomplish  their 
purpose  if  they  can  at  all  "suggest  a  manhood  and  a  ministry  in 
which  the  strength  of  mind  and  of  heart  of  Bishop  Williams  were 
blended  in  rare  proportion  and  graciousness."  It  is  no  part  of  such 
a  sketch  to  try  to  fill  in  with  mezzotint  effect  shades  of  personal 
virtues  or  faults.  Such  outlines  cannot  and  ought  not  to  attempt 
to  draw  strokes  of  heart  or  brain  anatomy.  Those  significant  aspira- 
tions written  in  their  Latin  just  before  and  just  after  the  record 
of  his  consecration  as  the  first  entry  beginning  his  official  Journal 
"O  God  make  haste  to  help  me,"  "God  be  merciful"  "tell,"  says 
Dr.  Hart  in  quoting  them  "of  earnest  resolve,  and  of  the  conviction 
that  only  by  divine  grace  could  it  be  carried  out:  they  tell  of  the 
sense  of  unworthiness  and  imperfection  and  how  he  felt  the  need 
of  God's  gracious  pardon."  In  1871  after  submitting  to  the  Con- 
vention summaries  of  Diocesan  statistics  to  that  date  and  making 
some  comparisons  with  those  of  1851,  the  year  of  his  consecration, 
and  saying  that  they  "indicate  a  quiet  but  I  think  a  steady  and 
abiding  growth"  he  adds,  "No  man  can  feel  so  strongly  as  I  do 
how  much  greater  that  growth  might  probably  have  been,  how 
much  more  progress  might  have  been  made,  had  another  than 
myself  been  your  Chief  Pastor.  Indeed  that  feeling,  growing  as 
it  has  with  every  year,  is  the  heaviest  burden  of  all  I  have  to  bear. 
God  all  merciful  grant  that  my  errors  and  shortcomings  may  be 
visited  on  myself  alone  and  not  on  the  flock  over  which  the  Holy 
Ghost  hath  made  me  an  overseer!" 

The  average  duration  of  an  American  Episcopate  is  I  believe, 
fifteen  years.  I  never  could  have  wished,  either  for  your  sake 
or  my  own,  that  mine  should  form  any  exception  to  the  rule.  It 
has  however  been  prolonged  beyond  the  average  line.       But  its 


30  SOLDIER  AND   SERVANT   SERIES 

end  must  now  be  nearer,  probably  much  nearer  than  its  beginning 
is.  As  I  look  back  towards  that  beginning  and  recall  the  un- 
numbered kindnesses  which  have  come  to  me  from  my  clergy  and 
people  —  whether  living  upon  earth  today,  or  sleeping  in  the  Lord 
Jesus,  —  I  find  no  words  to  express  my  gratitude,  not  to  earthly 
friends  alone  but  above  all,  to  God,  our  Heavenly  Father  Who  made 
the  lines  to  fall  'unto  me  in  pleasant  places.'  As  I  look  forward 
to  that  nearer  end  I  feel,  beloved,  how  much  I  need  your  prayers 
to  God  the  Holy  Ghost  that  I  may  have  a  right  judgment  in  all 
things;'  how  much  we  all  need  to  join  in  earnest  supplication  for 
'the  peace  of  Jerusalem'  and  the  preservation  in  its  integrity  and 
its  purity,  of  the  glorious  heritage  which  has  come  to  us  from 
our  fathers." 

The  end  of  his  episcopate  proved  to  be  a  third  father  off  than 
the  beginning,  but  we  may  well  see  in  this  heart  revelation  his  final 
nunc  dimittis  sentiment  when  he  was  taken  to  his  rest  after  a 
prolonged  confinement  to  his  bed,  on  Tuesday,  February  7,  1899, 
almost  at  the  very  time  when  the  students  of  the  Divinity  School 
at  Evensong  in  the  Chapel  were  singing  the  Nunc  Dimittis.  What 
a  devout  consummation  in  that  coincidence  of  student  chant  with 
passing  soul!  He  had  prescribed  in  "Directions  for  my  Executors" 
a  severe  simplicity  in  all  details  for  the  final  arrangements,  among 
them  'I  direct  my  grave  stones  to  be  in  form,  size  and  material, 
the  same  as  those  at  the  grave  of  my  mother.  On  the  headstone 
nothing  to  be  placed  but  my  name,  John  Williams,  and  the  date 
of  my  death,  on  the  footstone  my  initials,  —  J.  W."  The  final 
services  were  notable  for  that  same  simplicity  thronged  as  they 
were  with  his  clergy  and  people  and  his  earthly  remains  lie  by 
the  side  of  those  of  his  mother  awaiting  in  that  beautiful  Indian 
Hill  Cemetery  the  appearing  of  the  Chief  Shepherd.  His  very  grave, 
in  accordance  with  his  sentiments  is  placed  for  his  facing  in  the 
East  that  "dawn  of  the  Son  of  Righteousness." 


